There are 2 hair nodes used here. One for the head and one for the eyebrows.

When I turned the head to disk cache, I got a R5017 error. It didn't stop the render but there was no significant speed increase either. When I added disk cache to the eyebrow so that both nodes were using it, I immediately crashed to the desktop when I tried to render.

On a seperate note, I tried to use this texture for a texture map in Garibaldi. It worked fine for providing a texture colour for the head hair. When I tried to use it to line up paint with the eyebrow it came back to DS above the textured eybrow. I had to repaint it lower in order to line up with the texture in DS but that meant that Garibaldi was now taking the texture from the skin instead of the brow so I couldn't use the texture map for the brow node.

Well technically even older cards should work and when anti aliasing turned off these older cards may perform a reasonable amount.

The thing is that I don't want have to support issues that might arise with these older cards and need to cut things off somewhere. If your willing to take the risk then garibaldi should work fine with your card.

I'd say the only people who still have the older cards are tinkerers, either by virtue or by circumstance, and tinkerers take pleasure in solving problems by themselves. At least, I do =) I just felt I needed to mention this to encourage people who might be lurking wondering if the beta is worth trying - it is. It works on a computer most people would not even attempt running barebones DS4 on.

I have not experienced any problems with the plugin viewport whatsoever after I turned the AA off, it's only memory issues during rendering that I am running into when attempting to enable AO on whatever environment lights I try (I don't have enough skill and patience for setting up complex light rigs out of spotlghts... besides, DSMs eat memory, too). But I did expect those memory issues to arise (what, a 32bit system and 2GB RAM, I'm pushing all the limits there), so no problem.

This is a render from the beta 5 testing - sorry its artistic value is negative, I would come up with a better colour scheme if I had more free time these days. Every length group on the head is a new Garibaldi node, the brows and the beard are also two different nodes. For weird hairstyles like this (the ones I have loong wanted to have for my characters! =)), I find it very efficient re-importing the same density map for the head and erasing it in unwanted places. Though I have to say sometimes it's tricky to get the eraser to black the map out fully.

I tried using multiple density maps within a single Garibaldi node, but it didn't seem to produce the results I wanted (only one map would render at a time)

A note for Paint.NET users: while doing the brows, I noticed that PNG files saved from Paint.NET won't load (even if you just open a Garibaldi generated texture, paint over it and save back - image information says PNGs are the right type etc, but apparently Paint.NET uses a weird algorithm), I needed to reexport them from IrfanView using PNGOUT.

As for beta 6, I have not rendered anything yet (I hope the disk cache mode works for me) because DS crashed twice on me when I was saving a scene in which I created hair for vintage A3. Is that OK? Should I just stick to Genesis for the time being?

With WINE 1.5.16 or 17 I can run any of the betas, although 6 is the most stable. I can style and create with no problems, but I can't render...and it isn't just with Garibaldi hair. I can't render with 3Delight at all. It starts, but then goes into some strange wait loop and will never finish or it will timeout and crash.

With WINE 1.5.12 I can render, but I can't actually do anything in the plugin. Because going from paint to another section, once any painting has been done is the same as closing it down. It will crash in the blink of an eye. So now, I've got this great looking beard I need to send over to my Windows machine (really my 'HTPC'...but I need to update it to 4.5, first...arghh).

The versions in between and DS have other problems...with 1.5.15 being the most stable out of the lot.

I'm beginning to suspect that there is something specific to the Slackware package that is causing these problems, because I'm not seeing similar reports for other builds. I may have to go back to building the packages myself...

I don't know if this suggestion is possible, but how about a "twist" tool in the style section? Something that would twist sections of hair in a circular motion, to create spiral curls. If varying degrees of twist are added, one can create a braid effect with really tight twists, or even a dreaded hair look......just a thought. :)

Braids, dreadlocks and exact twists are going to be outside the scope of Garibaldi Version 1...
To apply tight waves, try setting a clump deformer to full strength with high bias and applying a scraggle noise deformer to that clump deformers curves.

btw 1 question will be there other option to save the hair curves other than a scene ?
I tried to save it as figure/prop it did loaded back, I could edit and style again but failed to generate clean and render the curves it was just blank .

Being able to import and export the style curves is actually a feature I've been thinking about for a while... I wasn't sure if it would actually be used so it hasn't made it to the todo list... I just tend to export a node and then merge it back into my scene.

When you load your garibaldi node back in you'll have to set which figure it's connected to. This can be set in the Garibaldi Hair Node's parameters under the 'Parent Geometry' property. This option can also be used to change a Garibaldi Hair Node to connect to a different figure in your scene as long as the figure is of the same type (eg. genesis -> genesis).

The 3rd suggestion is based on the fact that every hair guide starts from a vertex. So you could to grow or shrink a hair selection, just as you can do on several apps. To grow, select the vertices that are adjacents to the actual selection ... It would very useful for a better progressive selection of the hair guides. So it would be easy to create hair fades using grow/shrink selection plus scale tool.

I guess that the 4th suggestion is possible, because you have a similar feature on the Tweak tab, the "Random Length" slider. A length map on this final step would be very useful for hair fades. You could even add shaved details, it would be great !

The problem on creating fades with the actual interface is that it´s a real mess to select the hair guide after it are brushed.

I'm having problems with the disk cache method... W7 64bits, 12 Gb, I always get a DS4.5 crash when I try to render using disk cache.

And finally a question : What exactly does the 'Extrude Settings' on Style Tab ?

When I turned the head to disk cache, I got a R5017 error. It didn't stop the render but there was no significant speed increase either. When I added disk cache to the eyebrow so that both nodes were using it, I immediately crashed to the desktop when I tried to render.
The the 'Disk Cache' render method is not designed to speed up renders, just lower the memory usage. With small amounts of hair strands it may even slightly slow down render speeds (probably not noticeable though).
Don't worry about the R5017 error warning... I just am not quite being exact enough with some of the data I pass to 3Delight... Should render fine.

On a separate note, I tried to use this texture for a texture map in Garibaldi. It worked fine for providing a texture colour for the head hair. When I tried to use it to line up paint with the eyebrow it came back to DS above the textured eyebrow. I had to repaint it lower in order to line up with the texture in DS but that meant that Garibaldi was now taking the texture from the skin instead of the brow so I couldn't use the texture map for the brow node.

If I understand correctly... this is probably because Garibaldi will use the uvset set when the node is first created. I'm guesting you changed the uvset when applying a texture... For version 1 there no plans to allow changes of the uv map that garibaldi uses post creation.

It works on a computer most people would not even attempt running barebones DS4 on.
I'm not trying to advertise that fact quite yet... but hopefully changes and fixes over the next weeks will cause the minimum spec to drop a little.

I have not experienced any problems with the plugin viewport whatsoever after I turned the AA off, it's only memory issues during rendering that I am running into when attempting to enable AO on whatever environment lights I try (I don't have enough skill and patience for setting up complex light rigs out of spotlghts... besides, DSMs eat memory, too). But I did expect those memory issues to arise (what, a 32bit system and 2GB RAM, I'm pushing all the limits there), so no problem.

The nature of how 3Delight creates a cache of information in memory to speed up Ambient Occlution rendering will really push the limits of your system when handling complex geo like hair strands.
Spot lights with deep shadow maps although more time consuming to setup (although the look through spot light as camera feture helps) will mean you shouldn't have any memory issues with even 2GB of ram when used in conjunction with the 'Disk Cache' mode.

A note for Paint.NET users: while doing the brows, I noticed that PNG files saved from Paint.NET won't load (even if you just open a Garibaldi generated texture, paint over it and save back - image information says PNGs are the right type etc, but apparently Paint.NET uses a weird algorithm), I needed to reexport them from IrfanView using PNGOUT.
Well garibaldi uses the standard libpng impelentation for loading png files... I haven't had any troubles with it so far. Being that Paint.Net is quite popular I'll add it to the list of things to look into.
Did you get any errors in the dialog box that should show after importing the image directory?

The last time I tried to use WINE was about 3 years ago to use Spotify on my workstation at work... It kind of worked but I ended up just buying a cheap Windows laptop to have on my desk (seemed like a lot less hassle)... Also meant I could listen to internet radio in flash player without it tying down a whole processor core.
I built up quite a like/hate relationship with Linux after using it every day for about 9 years.
Anyway, maybe next year will be the year of desktop linux (as every year apparently is going to be)...

The problem on creating fades with the actual interface is that it´s a real mess to select the hair guide after it are brushed.
Yes curve selection could be better. I generally select them by selecting them near there starting point from the geo surface.

I'm having problems with the disk cache method... W7 64bits, 12 Gb, I always get a DS4.5 crash when I try to render using disk cache..

Can you email a simple scene where it crashes if possible. thanks

And finally a question : What exactly does the 'Extrude Settings' on Style Tab ?
Is an advanced feature...
Lets you fade between interpolating the hair strands between style curves and extruding the hair strands to just follow the style curves. Should be used in conjunction with a control map.
Is useful for fixing issues where hair needs to separated between the style curves instead of interpolating in between and the auto parting is not suited. Such as long hair that splits in-front and behind a shoulder.
Basically means you can get effects that would have traditional required needing to split parts of your hair node into separate setups.

The last time I tried to use WINE was about 3 years ago to use Spotify on my workstation at work... It kind of worked but I ended up just buying a cheap Windows laptop to have on my desk (seemed like a lot less hassle)... Also meant I could listen to internet radio in flash player without it tying down a whole processor core.
I built up quite a like/hate relationship with Linux after using it every day for about 9 years.
Anyway, maybe next year will be the year of desktop linux (as every year apparently is going to be)...

Since version 1.0 WINE for the most part works well. One of the problems is that now, many Windows errors work, too...

And like I said, I suspect most of the problem is build specific. I'm going to try building it on my own and seeing if that works better.

I save my hair nodes as scene subsets and merge them back into a new scene and that works very well. beta 6 works with my old saved nodes which is good. The render below I did with both Disk Cache and Ram Cache with the following results

2 lights, 1 distant & 1 point... both with ray traced shadows

Disk cache
Time: 6mins 35secs and I got a 3Delight error #43 with a truncated message that I think was saying an object was unnamed

Ram Cache
Time 5mins 36secs with no error message.

Neither scene took all that long so the time difference was not a huge issue but with scenes that took ages to render that time saving as a percentage of time saved would be significant so I will probably always switch to Ram Cache... but if the Disk Cache helps some systems render then it seems stable enough, although I don't know what the 3Delight error I got related to.

When I turned the head to disk cache, I got a R5017 error. It didn't stop the render but there was no significant speed increase either. When I added disk cache to the eyebrow so that both nodes were using it, I immediately crashed to the desktop when I tried to render.
The the 'Disk Cache' render method is not designed to speed up renders, just lower the memory usage. With small amounts of hair strands it may even slightly slow down render speeds (probably not noticeable though).
Don't worry about the R5017 error warning... I just am not quite being exact enough with some of the data I pass to 3Delight... Should render fine.

On a separate note, I tried to use this texture for a texture map in Garibaldi. It worked fine for providing a texture colour for the head hair. When I tried to use it to line up paint with the eyebrow it came back to DS above the textured eyebrow. I had to repaint it lower in order to line up with the texture in DS but that meant that Garibaldi was now taking the texture from the skin instead of the brow so I couldn't use the texture map for the brow node.

If I understand correctly... this is probably because Garibaldi will use the uvset set when the node is first created. I'm guesting you changed the uvset when applying a texture... For version 1 there no plans to allow changes of the uv map that garibaldi uses post creation.

Well, if speed isn't the purpose then no worries. :-)

I wasn't concerned about the error message - I was just passing along information. What did concern me was the fact that setting 2 or more nodes to disk cache would cause an immediate crash when I hit render.

It isn't the UV set. The texture in the render is the same one used to produce the density and texture maps for Garibaldi. That's why I was surprised when they didn't line up.

I'm having problems with the disk cache method... W7 64bits, 12 Gb, I always get a DS4.5 crash when I try to render using disk cache..
Can you email a simple scene where it crashes if possible. thanks
Here is a very simple scene with genesis and a basic garibaldi hair. Some details in the txt and jpg files includedhttps://dl.dropbox.com/s/csq3qp8gx49aio0/test43.rar?dl=1

And finally a question : What exactly does the 'Extrude Settings' on Style Tab ?

Is an advanced feature...
Lets you fade between interpolating the hair strands between style curves and extruding the hair strands to just follow the style curves. Should be used in conjunction with a control map.
Is useful for fixing issues where hair needs to separated between the style curves instead of interpolating in between and the auto parting is not suited. Such as long hair that splits in-front and behind a shoulder.
Basically means you can get effects that would have traditional required needing to split parts of your hair node into separate setups.
I got it, and will try these days.

Spot lights with deep shadow maps although more time consuming to setup (although the look through spot light as camera feture helps) will mean you shouldn't have any memory issues with even 2GB of ram when used in conjunction with the 'Disk Cache' mode.

Sounds promising, thank you. I'll try building a spotlight rig as soon as I have time (I gotta drop in a gel spotlight, then, to compensate for lack of environment IBL, and try adding AO to the skin surfaces).

Well garibaldi uses the standard libpng impelentation for loading png files... I haven't had any troubles with it so far. Being that Paint.Net is quite popular I'll add it to the list of things to look into.
Did you get any errors in the dialog box that should show after importing the image directory?

Here is the error message, "color_type" is mismatched. SkinFace was saved over in Paint.NET. Garibaldi then proceeds to say it's loaded successfully, and indeed the mesh turns from transparent to dark, but it is uniformly black, the white colour does not come through.

PS I keep crashing when saving a scene with Aiko3 and Garibaldi hair. It renders fine, but does not save. I'd thought it could be because of my whacky skin shader on her, but no, even a default A3 with no textures causes a crash when saving with hair. Should I send you the error report DS creates?

Ok I thought that I would Make a new Mane for The Mil Big Cat aka Lion...

No go..I can start the Plugin select setup then I choose skin and when I click to accept The plugin goes Bye Bye and I am left with just DS4.5 and no Error message...So I am going to try on a few other legacy files...

Neither scene took all that long so the time difference was not a huge issue but with scenes that took ages to render that time saving as a percentage of time saved would be significant so I will probably always switch to Ram Cache... but if the Disk Cache helps some systems render then it seems stable enough, although I don't know what the 3Delight error I got related to.

The error message will be fixed in the next beta... Coming very soon.
When using raytraced shadows the Disk Cache is unlikely to save much memory.
I still recommend using Spot lights with deep shadow maps for optimal performance with Gariabldi Express.